Check Out Tyler Leli’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tyler Leli.

Tyler, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
The Forum was the culmination of many stops and starts. Having grown up in the area and attending UNC-Chapel Hill, I moved around a bit after my undergraduate studies, I moved to New York for two years and then to London for graduate studies.

Impending COVID lockdowns in March 2019 presented me with a stark choice: Stay locked in my apartment in London or come back to the states. I quickly decided to come home, first taking a pit stop in New York and then coming back to Raleigh in March 2019.

Lockdown was a time of reflection and inspiration. A few friends of mine banded together, shared books, wrote, and tried to push ourselves forward creatively. One offshoot of that was that I wanted to write, create a platform for the expression of ideas that I saw percolating in our local community (of which thereof an abundance!).

I initially toyed with the idea of a podcast; a few friends of mine broached a lot of exciting ideas but we never took the initiative and acted. I was still in school full-time, taking classes that began at 5 a.m., and then working on a 30,000-word thesis on top of that. I told myself that I was too busy, did not make the time, and pushed the podcast idea to the back-burner.

Fast-forward to October 2021. I turned in my thesis. The excuse I leaned on for so long was suddenly gone. I started buying Shure mics, a Samson mixer, and the Scarlett 2i2 audio interface. I did not want to half-ass this attempt at launching a podcast.

In the course of planning stories, contacting people for potential interviews, and creating a small team of writers, photographers, illustrators, and musicians, I felt an urge to get moving. I developed a Squarespace page in December 20201 and immediately got to work. I started publishing poems, satirical pieces, and arranging interviews. Zach Dunham or Arson Daily was gracious enough to be our first interview, and we wrote a feature piece around Arson Daily’s New Year’s Eve show at The Pour House that I am proud of.

Around the time we were doing the interview and story on Arson Daily, Dakota Proctor wrote a review of the music he listened to in 2021; the piece was a part journal, part list of best songs and albums, and it was really well received. I knew Dakota was a great painter and musician, but I was really awed by his writing. I immediately started contacting bands to review their albums and interview them, and I think Dakota’s writing was a big part of our receiving albums to review from Big Thief, The Districts, Sonic Youth, and more since the beginning of 2022.

The next big step I would point to was bringing on Lucas Scott as my main co-interviewer. That really got the ball rolling. Lucas has a great eye for local musicians and artists in the Triangle, and he is a great communicator in interviews as well. We have a natural fluidity together, which I think brings forth a less formal, more raw, and unfiltered dimension to the interviews we have done in 2022 (namely with Michael White, Kemp Dupri, and Sean Kyd). Thus far we have been clipping interviews and publishing them as written stories, though we plan to transition to podcasts within the next couple of weeks.

I am excited about what the future holds. We have projects like Forum Sampler, a monthly playlist of 40 recent releases and contemporary tracks, which is curated by four contributors. My cousin, Sean McMahon has done phenomenal sketches for the playlists. We have other plans to bring on a videographer who will shoot projects based on food experiences and have received good feedback from chefs who would like to participate.

Photographers Trey Ferstler and Emily Schmidt continue to do a great job. Overall, we are trying to curate a team of individuals writing, drawing, making music, really just creating in the broadest sense of the word.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road has been smooth in the sense that I have had total control over the creative process. Part of my desire with this project was to challenge conventional norms of journalism (not all of what we do in journalism, but some of it is analogous). We do not have to be neutral, objective purveyors of information.

We are individuals with perspectives that deserve to be acknowledged. So when we do an interview or write a piece, we do not try to hide who we are. We acknowledge that our backgrounds impact our perspective and how we exist and learn within the world. From there, we want to be gracious, truthful, and responsible with our information sharing.

The flip side of pursuing a project independently is that you have to fund everything. Luckily, a lot of our costs were lump sums. You buy a computer, mics, a mixer, and a recorder, and you are pretty good.

Working full-time and trying to launch a website and podcast has not been especially easy on an emotional and physical level. You find yourself having two jobs and being primarily attracted to the one that does not have an income base. So there are frustrations there, but we have plans to try and build a sustainable economic foundation for The Forum.

If we have enough money to live, the road will not be too bumpy. Sure, you want to gain viewers and listeners, but we are confident in the quality of work we are doing and believe that exterior considerations like these will become obsolete as we continue to meet people and grow.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
The Forum reviews songs, albums, and books, we publish poetry and short stories, we review art installations and exhibits, and we publish photography collections. Broadly, our goal is to document the most interesting expression of ideas in contemporary culture. We are based in Raleigh, so a lot of our pieces focus on artists and work done around the Triangle, but I see us as building a base on the East Coast and beyond.

We are different from others due to our philosophical approach to writing. Whereas most publications try to hide the voice of writers, we try to acknowledge and amplify the various perspectives we come from. We do not live in a world of homogenous experiences and thinkers, and we should be proud of the diversity of thought. We should amplify that in a respectful way.

We try to do our part by conducting interviews with local creatives, writing about music, producing poetry and short stories, and diving deeper with ideas pieces that touch on social issues. There is no need to lock ourselves in a box; we want to explore what interests us and to do it in an honest way.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
Pay just attention to the world and create from this perch.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: theforum2021.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theforum2021/

Image Credits
Tyler Jewell and Sean McMahon